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If you want the colorful and cheery glow of Christmas lights to last all year, a well-placed strand of Twinkly Dots is exactly the excuse you need to line your living space with bold LED lighting. The best part is that these highly customizable lights are perfect for a modern smart home.

Lighting, Your Way: Build, Sizes, and Integration

Unlike the chunky bulb-shaped Christmas lights collecting dust in your attic, Twinkly Dots utilize an extremely flexible strand that connects a series of small dot-shaped LEDs, making it easy to place them wherever you want. Since these lights are offered in three sizes, 60, 200, and 400 RGB LED Dots, Twinkly has options for buyers to line their TV, entertainment center, or entire gaming room with vibrant LED lighting.

Something to keep in mind, though, is price. While you can get the USB-powered 60 Dot strand for $49.99, the 200 and 400 LED models with dedicated power supplies come in at $114.99 and $174.99, respectively.

Once you've stuck your Dots exactly where you want them, integrating the LEDs into Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, or your preferred smart home control hub is a snap. Console gamers will also appreciate how well Twinkly Dots integrate with the Razer Synapse app---watching as the room's ambient lighting flashes and twinkles in perfect sync with your favorite action-packed games offers an immersive, eye-catching experience.

Customization: Only Limited by Your Creativity

Sure, a string of Twinkly Dots may seem a little pricy when compared to other LED light strips on the market, but you can't beat the reliably bright glow, impressive color range, and infinite ways to program the Dots to shimmer, strobe, and shine. And thanks to this model's quality RGB LEDs, each red, green, and blue LED light combines their shining colors to create every hue you could imagine with eye-catching results.

The Twinkly app (available on iPhone and Android) is a comprehensive tool for completely customizing the lighting effects and colors of your Dots, down to mapping exactly which LEDs will light up and at what moments to your exact specifications.

Creative users will have a blast exploring the wild effects and inspired animations they can make with their Twinkly Dots, but there are plenty of premade and downloadable effects to hold anyone's attention right out of the box.

Twinkly Dots around TV displaying a tree frog
Arnold Carreiro / Review Geek

A Few Small Tangles

While the lights themselves are easy to set up, it took me over a dozen attempts to connect the Twinkly Dots to my local Wi-Fi network. The in-app feature that automatically connects to the Wi-Fi signal the device emits never worked for me.

The good news is that when the connectivity issues finally clicked, the signal was strong, the app worked like a charm, and the Dots were a breeze to use. I just wish the initial setup could've been much smoother for me.

Should You Buy Twinkly Dots?

A collection of Twinkly Dots are absolutely worth investing in if you appreciate the warm glow of hundreds of vividly colored LEDs, having your room's lighting pulsate in response to your gaming, or love the idea of creating personalized lighting effects. But be warned: Once you own a nice set of LEDs, you'll never want to go back to the cheap ones!

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Twinkly Dots

Pros
  • Easy to install
  • Vibrant and stylish
  • Infinite custom lighting options
  • Versatile smart home connectivity options
  • Featherweight
Cons
  • A pain to connect to Wi-Fi
  • A little pricey